It's like seeing a car accident after it's already happened. We want to see how it happened, but vice versa in this case. It's often we see the effect, but seldom the cause. When it's flipped around the aftermath is just as interesting. It's a natural human curiosity.
I must admit that I'm surprised they were not Roval but then again Roval Rims are the most expensive out there. I had some and ouf.... You almost protect them with your life so they don't get damaged.
I can't imagine live. I think I would have shit my pants. I am pretty sure I stopped breathing just watching it on the tube. With his rear tire dragging along, for whatever bizarre reason all I could think of was a wounded samurai with his intestines hanging out while he continues to cut his way through a field of enemies. Flipping unbelievable.
yeah why block it? it will no doubt be considered one of the highlights of the entire season and has turned out to be excellent pr for dt swiss so the uci block it? wtf? do they just not like dh or something? sometimes i wonder if they even understand what downhill mountain biking is.
i forsee a very very mad mechanic, and soon an sponsor saying something like "the one and only rim than can withstand a no tire WC run" he is making money out of it any way.
I forsee a mechanic that will quadruple check those tires before the next race run.
I don't think they care too much about a rim. If the prototype frame is damaged, that might be another issue I guess.
Bad rim or bad tires are both possible, but what are the odds the rims/tires he ran for practice and qualifications would give up on the FIRST CORNER... Ever get to a trail, realize your tires are low and you forgot your pump, and have to decide whether or not to just go for it?
That wasn't the first corner. Remember that most of the course isn't on camera. Also, DH eats tons of tires even when installed perfectly and free of defects. You hit a rock just right, it's game over.
Gwin is one of the first generation of corporate cyborg. They made him in the speCIAlized bunker under the HQ. As you know it took them a while to get his software to work with the demo platform. Ratboy is an earlier model. Before they nailed the speech chip.
until technology allows it racers are gonna have to give up just a bit of traction for reliability. Gwinn may have just blown a championship with one flat. tubeless works great but it is only really reliable at a slightly lower pressure than a tube. why does everyone want to go way lower damaging rims and risking a burp. keep the pressure slightly lower than a tubed setup and you still have way more traction. the amount of flats this year is insane!
I run tubes at 16 psi on wide rims with 2.5 tyres, never pinch so how much lower do you need...
tubeless just not there yet, sidewalls get cut too easy..
comes from the hainebrink bat fastard forks form late 90's, first 8" travel upside downers when everyone else had 4" rock shoxs, someone shouted it at me on a race run and it kind of stuck lol
I know this might be a stupid question, but I still do not understand why nobody is running thick tubeless tires to not get a flat tire? Or is there no other solution to avoid these flats nowadays? I mean compared to the other technologies which are used nowadays flats seems kind of annoying and obsolete....
The tire rolled off the rim. And yes I agree, there needs to be more effort put into tire tech/rim tech and keeping that bad boy on the wheel with air in it at all times. Instead we focus on the actual size of the wheel
What happened to that 2-layer tubular tire prototype a while back? Inner tube inflates to super high pressures to retain the tire on the rim, outer tube inflates to regular (low) tubeless pressures. Seems like that's the answer to keep it from rolling off.
Schwalbe dual chamber system, foam core,...they need something. Travel across the world for one run to get a flat and there's only a handful of races/season.yikes
I thought some of these wc racers were running ultra light tubes inside a UST system, without the anti-flat slime of course. the compared weight is similar but if they pinch flat the UST seal is good enough to keep air in for a 3 minute run, and won't burp either because there's a tube inside. Now, if you pinch AND burp you're outta luck using any rubber.... we're still talking about bikes right?
At every local race (CA enduro and Fontana DH) i've attended recently, all the flats have been happening to riders with tubeless systems where the tire burps/rolls off the rim. as far as i can tell there isn't a true advantage to tubeless (at the amateur race level) other than thinking tubes are uncool. but i'm unsure of the distribution of riders running tubed/tubeless.
Mavic's Deemax are the only true tubeless DH wheels. Rim hooks are really proeminent on mavic rims and I never heard of somebody rolling off his tire on Deemax.
There was a lot off effort put into a tire/rim system and it was called UST. But some people insisted that tractors and bicycles should be the exclusive users of tubes so tire companies had to do 2 versions of any new tire... Than some smart-a** cam up with tubless-ready and tire companies saw that they can sell one tire for both the tubeless and the tube fraction without investing in two molds. Just that it dos not work too well...
Anyway big props to Gwin this was absolutely insane! i wish i could ride like this with tires...
Looks like DT Swiss is already jumping on this awesome opportunity to market their rims. Check out the video and comment at the bottom of the product page.
It says the UCI has blocked the video for copy right, Clearly being bribed by tyre companies, doesn't want us to know your quicker without tyres.... CYCLING CONSPIRACIES
Any idea why his tire made it through less than 1 corner? Air pressure too low? Faulty tire? Bad mounting job? If it didn't survive the very first corner, when he wasn't even up to full speed, I can't imagine it would have lasted the whole race, so Gwin was screwed from the start.
It happens between 11 and 16 seconds (the flat). The action of the rear wheel between 11 and 12 sec looks odd. At the 13 sec he is leaving the berm and tire appears ok, then between 13 & 16 there is no image, at 17 its down. Does anybody see when it happened?
I think there is a segment that we don't see, they only show us the start and then skip about a minute and a half, the part where you see him coming out of the corner with the flat tire is way down the track. Because if you go to 01:10 in the video, the timer is actually at 02:40, so that means that the video doesn't show the whole run... I think they always have to do that because they can't fit the whole course with cameras.
@mobweb, Watching again I think you are right. You can see him coming out of the tunnel with a flat. What fooled me was the seamless commentary. It would be very interesting to see how this whole thing is produced. Did they pick camera angles to make it seem like they show the whole run?
It is obvious the whole run isn't shown. They're not hiding anything. The clock shows that the coverage is abbreviated with each and every run. The production crew real time edits footage that the commentators watch and comment on as it is shown just moments after it is compiled. The logistics are impressive.
Word is that the tire rolled off. Given the speed these guys ride at, that's not unusual at all. In person it sounds like sledgehammers hitting rocks as they absolutely rampage through stuff us mortals do at like one quarter the speed.
We could point fingers and blame something of someone. But in my opinion, everyone is smart, professional and doing their job as well as humans currently know how. Improvements can and will be made but it isn't like anyone did anything wrong.
I can't believe that tire didn't bind up in the rear triangle, I thought It was going to happen like every time the damn thing went flopping around......dude is a beast!!!!
Crazy that it held up so nicely. I am glad the lbs recommend these hoops mine are on their way and I purchased them way before I knew this had happened. This now gives nice clear head space and confidence in the rims. The real question is would other rims hold up like this I think there are many that would do the same
DT Swiss posted the run on their website on the product page for the EX 471 rims under the "News and Riders" tab. Looks as though they're pretty happy to get some unexpected marketing on the MTB rims.
Did he get more points by riding on his rim like a badass (and thus getting down faster) than he would have if he had simply slowly and carefully rolled the rest of the course?
I'm not sure but it might be safer for him to pin it, instead of choosing another (unknown) line and messing up? Also I haven't seen this type of course live yet, but it just might not be possible to go much slower due to steepness/obstacles? Usually when I'm tried and consciously going slower I mess up more than I would if I tried to go at normal pace.
call me naive, but i think he did it cos it was fun. he was enjoying himself and the crowd loved it. he could maybe have salvaged a few points, but with a flat that early i doubt he really thought he had a chance. i think the man just enjoys pinning it down a steep hill. and i for one cant say i blame him.
The rock garden on the rim ...
On behalf of all rims, I strongly protest. These are inhuman riding conditions.
BTW, somebody called for a mechanic with strong truing skills
That rim is seriously over designed if it didn't explode on that run. They could probably shave another pound off that thing with some re-engineering. Maybe run 16 spokes. Geesh. btw, when's the auction for that piece of UCI DH memorabilia?
Going to be really pedantic, if he had zero psi there would be a perfect vacuum around his rim, which has so far been impossible to achieve with current technology. It's more correct to say he's running 14.7 psi, assuming he is at sea level, as this is the average (mean) air pressure. Granted he is not at sea level so it may be a bit less but you get the idea
@jamieridesbikes He didn't specify absolute or gage pressure, but zero psi implies gage. Unless you have a calibrated barometer hooked up to your floor pump you do all your bike stuff in gage too. Pedantry is dumb.
Besides, it's not "more correct" to use absolute pressure for cycling, it's just a different (and undoubtedly more relevant) terminology. What would be the point of stating tire pressures in absolute measurements? The softness/firmness of the tire depends on the atmospheric pressure, so gage pressure is the only meaningful number to use.
And you can have a perfect vacuum with 'current technology'. Take a container out to space, empty it, fly even deeper into space, then close it. Particle density out there is so low that your probability of catching one in the container is also very low, meaning with a little luck you'd have a perfect vacuum (in the classical sense).
Why is this such a big deal...someone rolled tire off rim...tire luckily didn't get caught up in drive-train allowing rider to ride on rim...rim held up like "most" aluminum rims would pretty much regardless of who built wheel...rider got last place...Blenki got a flat tire in FW last week, finished race and nobody discussed it when it harder to ride a flat tire on rim than on rim alone.
because he went way faster than anyone thought possible given the situation. just like hills run down champery in the wet. or harts for that matter. winning is good, but sticking two fingers up to minor setbacks like torrential rain just before a run everyone else got to do in the dry, or having no tyre, and just pushing on at race pace anyway, still wearing a huge grin is what makes our sport bloody awesome. if you pull off a run everyone knows was fast, it doesn`t matter where you place
Flame away but if this makes you want to buy DT hoops you are fu*king crazy. I have owned more wheel sets than I could ever count and DT hoops are SOFT. Any one that actually races their "off the shelf" stuff knows what I'm talking about.
He is riding on unobtainable to the public rims don't people get that?
dt rims are soft, but i doubt he was running anything non standard. its not really that surprising the rim didnt fold. its just surprising how ridiculously fast he went on it
I believe you are mistaken .the hash tag was written from gwins POV meaning that gwin does not care about his rear wheel. Not me not caring because I do care lol
183 Comments
www.pinkbike.com/photo/11076435
Erm... Am I the only person who expected to see a destroyed rim? Having just received almost an entire wc dh run.
This quotes deserves to be a slogan!
www.dh-rangers.com/gallery/foto-10015-gwins-felge-vom-run-in-leogang-2014.html
Ever get to a trail, realize your tires are low and you forgot your pump, and have to decide whether or not to just go for it?
Or is there no other solution to avoid these flats nowadays? I mean compared to the other technologies which are used nowadays flats seems kind of annoying and obsolete....
At every local race (CA enduro and Fontana DH) i've attended recently, all the flats have been happening to riders with tubeless systems where the tire burps/rolls off the rim. as far as i can tell there isn't a true advantage to tubeless (at the amateur race level) other than thinking tubes are uncool. but i'm unsure of the distribution of riders running tubed/tubeless.
But some people insisted that tractors and bicycles should be the exclusive users of tubes so tire companies had to do 2 versions of any new tire...
Than some smart-a** cam up with tubless-ready and tire companies saw that they can sell one tire for both the tubeless and the tube fraction without investing in two molds. Just that it dos not work too well...
Anyway big props to Gwin this was absolutely insane! i wish i could ride like this with tires...
www.pinkbike.com/photo/11075532
Check out the video and comment at the bottom of the product page.
www.dtswiss.com/Components/Rims-MTB/EX-471
Air pressure too low? Faulty tire? Bad mounting job?
If it didn't survive the very first corner, when he wasn't even up to full speed, I can't imagine it would have lasted the whole race, so Gwin was screwed from the start.
Watching again I think you are right. You can see him coming out of the tunnel with a flat.
What fooled me was the seamless commentary. It would be very interesting to see how this whole thing is produced. Did they pick camera angles to make it seem like they show the whole run?
#2)salvaging points
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld5HGKO4OQc
Besides, it's not "more correct" to use absolute pressure for cycling, it's just a different (and undoubtedly more relevant) terminology. What would be the point of stating tire pressures in absolute measurements? The softness/firmness of the tire depends on the atmospheric pressure, so gage pressure is the only meaningful number to use.
And you can have a perfect vacuum with 'current technology'. Take a container out to space, empty it, fly even deeper into space, then close it. Particle density out there is so low that your probability of catching one in the container is also very low, meaning with a little luck you'd have a perfect vacuum (in the classical sense).
Yes pedantry is dumb, but it's fun
^^*)
He is riding on unobtainable to the public rims don't people get that?